Negative Affect, Experiential Acceptance, & Psychological Resilience: A Moderation Analysis

The purpose of our study was to explore the association between negative affect and psychological resilience and how experiential acceptance (vs experiential avoidance), in the context of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), weakened this association among university students. To test moderation effects of experiential acceptance, data of 213 university students were collected from three universities in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. The participants completed measures of negative affect (PANAS), experiential acceptance (AAQ), psychological resilience (CD-RISC). The results from the hierarchical regression analyses indicated that negative affect had a significant inverse relationship with psychological resilience. For the moderation effect, the simple effect analyses indicated that high utilization of experiential acceptance reduced the strength of inverse association between negative affect and resilience. The results showed a moderate negative relationship between negative affect and resilience in the high experiential acceptance condition, while a strong inverse relationship between negative affect and resilience was observed in the low experiential acceptance condition. That is, experiential acceptance was a significant moderator that buffered the relationship between negative affect and the outcome of resilience. The results are meaningful in that it supports the theoretical background of ACT through a correlational data while previous literature focused on the effectiveness of treatment results. Experiential acceptance may potentially protect against harm from negative affect while it may facilitate the individual to become more resilient. The literature may also give ideas for teachers and counselors in university settings to help their students regulate their negative affect through remaining in contact with their emotions through acceptance.